In all the excitement of setting the blog up, I completely failed to realise that I hadn’t posted this year’s exam results. I do it every year so that I have a track of what results I got, so if you really can’t bear to look (for whatever reasons) I suggest you turn away now.

I must warn you that this is a very long post, and probably not of interest to most people. Only read onwards if you’re really interested in maths, or possibly want to find out just how crazy I really am.

• Measure Theory: 44% - to be honest, that was better than expected.
• Equivariant Bifurcation Theory: 79% - extremely pleased, but could have done better.
• Computational PDEs: 78% - the exam let me down a bit for this one, otherwise a brilliant module.
• Topics in Mathematical Biology: 63% - extremely disappointing really, did quite a lot of work.
• Combinatorics: 71% - somewhat surprising; I thought I screwed this module up royally.
• Introduction to Topology: 73% - a little disappointing. Probably silly mistakes that let me down.
• Algebraic Number Theory: 66% - not unexpected but still disappointing. Forgot a big proof in the exam hall.
• Complex Analysis: 75% - happy with this one; thought I might have screwed it up.
• Introduction to Synergetics: 93% - oooooh yeah.

So, all in all, a little disappointing but I think I chose some pretty tough modules to be honest. My Seymore average for the year is 71.35%. This leads me neatly onto a little discussion about what I want to do this year.

There’s an awful lot of apparently good modules running. I’m going to run through them quickly and give a brief description, as well as my thoughts on the module.

Third Year Modules

• MA3E5: History of Mathematics (15 CATS, T1)
  This is an almost definite choice for me. It’s worth 15 CATS on something I’m hugely interested in, so it’s on the list for sure.
• MA398: Matrix Analysis and Algorithms (15 CATS, T1)
  I’ve heard mixed reviews about this. Accordingly it uses knowledge from Applied Analysis which I haven’t taken, so may not be a wise choice. On the other hand it could help me towards my goal of studying computational mathematics. So this is on the maybe list.
• MA371: Qualitative Theory of ODEs (15 CATS, T1)
  Seemed a bit tough when I attended the first few lectures last year. Don’t know whether to give it another shot or not.
• MA377: Rings and Modules (15 CATS, T1)
  No. Just no.
• MA3D4: Fractal Geometry (15 CATS, T2)
  I attended the first couple of lectures of this course but decided to drop it and take it this year. Looks to be (and by all accounts was) a pretty good module.
• MA3D5: Galois Theory (15 CATS, T2)
  I’ve heard mixed reviews about this module. I decided not to take it this year, but by all accounts the exam was pretty nasty, and it’s the same lecturer as the Combinatorics module. So maybe I won’t take this, but it’s certainly interesting and could help me out with a couple of 4th year modules.
• MA3F2: Knot Theory (15 CATS, T2)
  I didn’t do this module last year because I thought it’d be a nice one to take this year instead. So I think I shall definitely be taking it. By all accounts it’s very managable and a fun course to take.

Fourth Year Modules

• MA4F7: Brownian Motion (18 CATS, T1)
  Don’t know. Heavily involved with statistics (obviously) but is apparently a good module to take.
• MA4xx: Calculus of Variations (18 CATS, T1)
  Doesn’t have a PYDC entry yet but, as I took the Variational Principles module (which is excellent), I really want to give this one a good look at.
• MA4C0: Differential Geometry (18 CATS, T1)
  One of the pre-requisites is Geometry of Curves and Surfaces (which I haven’t got) but apparently it’s quite a fun module. Maybe I’ll go to the first few lectures.
• MA424: Dynamical Systems (18 CATS, T1)
  I did the first assignment for this last year, and it was absolutely awful. This year, however, there’s an awesome lecturer running the course so I’m going to try it again and see what happens.
• MA4E1: Homogenization Theory for PDEs (18 CATS, T1)
  This looks like a toughie but might be fun. Going to go to the first few lectures and see. Andrew Stuart is the lecturer so it should be a good course to take.
• MA4E0: Lie Groups (18 CATS, T1)
  Didn’t run last year so I couldn’t take it, but am very much looking forward to doing it this year. Haven’t stretched my group theory in a while so it could do with some practice really.
• MA4E7: Population Dynamics: Ecology and Epidemiology (18 CATS, T1)
  Being that I quite enjoyed Topics in Mathematical Biology, I thought this might be a good module to take. It looks like a lot of fun.
• MA4A2: Advanced PDEs (18 CATS, T2)
  Probably not. It’s being run by the same guy that did Measure Theory so I’ll really have to either be good at the subject or really like it in order to take it.
• MA408: Algebraic Topology (18 CATS, T2)
  I really, really want to take this module, but I don’t know whether it’s a good idea as far as maximizing marks goes. I may take it anyway, even if I don’t sit the exam because it looks like a great modules from a mathematics perspective.
• MA4xx: Analytical Fluid Dynamics (18 CATS, T2)
  I suspect I may not be able to take this module because of pre-requisites, but I’d like to try anyway as I really enjoy Fluid Dynamics.
• MA4E3: Asymptotic Methods (18 CATS, T2)
  I played with asymptotic methods in Topics, and it was the first time I really looked at them. Might be a git of a module though.
• CY902: Computational Linear Algebra and Optimization (18 CATS, T2)
  As a part of my grand master plan (I’ll explain later), it’d be quite nice to take this module as it’s offered by the CSC.
• MA426: Elliptic Curves (18 CATS, T2)
  I’m looking forward to this. For the past three years it’s been a reading module, but the legend Samir Siksek who read Algebraic Number Theory is coming over to teach this. It’s been a dream of mine to study elliptic curves ever since I read Fermat’s Last Theory by Simon Singh back in sixth form, so maybe this is an opportunity. Requires some Galois Theory, but I’m hoping that since I did Algebraic Number Theory there’ll be a fair amount of overlapping.
• MA433: Fourier Analysis (18 CATS, T2)
  From what I’ve heard, this is a good module to take if you’ve done Measure Theory. I didn’t like that particular module a whole lot, but appraently this is a lot easier. So I may end up taking it.
• MA448: Hyperbolic Geometry (18 CATS, T2)
  I was originally going to go to the first few lectures because Caroline Series was the lecturer, but she’s not doing it this year. So I might turn up for the first few and see if I hate it or not.
• MA4F8: Information Theory (18 CATS, T2)
  Accordingly this is quite an easy module to take, but I’ll have to wait and see.
• MA475: Riemann surfaces (18 CATS, T2)
  I really enjoyed the Riemann surfaces stuff that we covered in Complex Analysis, so this might be ideal from that point of view. On the other hand, it might be a right bastard. Only one way to find out…

As you can see, there’s an awful lot of modules there for me to pick and choose from. I am going to over-cat this year to 150 CATS. The reason? Well, to get 80% overall for my degree, which was my real target from the outset, I’m going to have to achieve 90% this year. This isn’t exactly unachieveable, but over-catting to 150 CATS means I only really need around 80-85% dead-weight average.

The Grand Master Plan of Death

Well, my “plan”, so to speak, for the next few years is to try and get onto the PhD course at the CSC. Most of the time, this entails applicants doing the MSc course first, and then moving onto the PhD. I’m hoping that by doing as many CSC modules as I can, I may impress them enough to get the funding. We’ll see. There are three CSC modules I hope to take this year:

• High-Performance Computing (run out of Physics)
• Computational Linear Algebra and Optimization (run out of Maths)
• Data Structures and Algorithms (run out of CS)

This then leaves me two more modules to take on the MSc course. This hopefully means that I might get away with just doing a bigger dissertation along with those other two modules, but we’ll have to see.

So there we have it. The master plan for the year; let’s just see how things pan out. The first step starts tomorrow - re-enrolment!

8:58 pm | Posted in Academia, Exams, Maths